Petro Potapenko looks at the piles of grain in his granary in the Kyiv region. Like many other Ukrainian farmers, he wonders if he will be able to export his produce despite restrictions imposed by more and more neighbors, AFP reports.

“It’s a big problem, we still have a big surplus of grain,” said the 34-year-old farmer, whose father founded the farm three decades ago in the village of Kipyachka, about 100 kilometers south of Kyiv.

Poland and other EU countries bordering Ukraine recently imposed temporary bans on Ukrainian grain exports following protests by local farmers over the collapse in prices associated with the influx of grain.

This is a consequence of the Russian invasion, which began in February 2022, which significantly limited the traditional route of Ukrainian grain exports through the Black Sea and redirected a significant part of these exports to the EU.

Last week, Warsaw banned the import of dozens of Ukrainian food products, mostly grain, without consulting Kyiv, one of the world’s biggest exporters, or the European Commission, drawing criticism from them.

Hungary, Slovakia and Bulgaria have introduced similar temporary bans.

On the ground, the consequences were immediate for Potapenko, who is now struggling to sell his surplus sunflowers.

As soon as the Polish ban was announced, Ukrainian sunflower oil producers stopped buying seeds because there was no guarantee that they would be able to export their products to the EU. “As a result, I can no longer sell my seeds,” says the farmer.

“Europe is closed, the ports are closed, we have nowhere to sell grain,” Ihor Novytskyi, deputy director of an agricultural enterprise in the central Cherkasy region, complains about the situation.

If the restrictions continue, many Ukrainian farmers, especially in the east, “will simply go bankrupt,” he fears.

Industry is booming

Although Poland announced the resumption of transit on Friday after the negotiations, Ukrainian farmers do not calm down.

Especially since Warsaw has promised to strictly control transit, especially with the help of electronic seals equipped with GPS tracking devices on transport. In addition, the trucks will be accompanied by Polish customs officials during the week.

“It may be a little better” than a total blockade, but “additional control” at the border will increase logistics costs, predicts Potapenko.

“The more time the carrier wastes, the more they will charge you for the time spent in the inspection line,” he says.

Tensions between Kyiv and its European neighbors have arisen amid uncertainty over the planned May 18 reopening of the Black Sea grain corridor, through which roughly 60 percent of Ukrainian exports pass.

Russia, the world’s other major grain exporter, has threatened to suspend the deal, which is crucial to global supplies, complaining that its own production is hampered by sanctions.

Inspections of grain-laden ships in the Bosphorus, a key element of the agreement between Kiev and Moscow brokered by Turkey and the UN, have already slowed, and Ukraine accuses Russia of blocking grain inspections.

In Ukraine, many believe that behind the crisis with neighboring countries they see the hand of Moscow, which until now resolutely supported Kyiv in the face of the Russian invasion.

“This smacks of Russian interference,” Andrii Dykun, head of the Ukrainian Agrarian Council association, told AFP. “Someone organizes protests (of European farmers), gives them media, it doesn’t happen by itself,” he said.

Russia’s invasion of eastern, southern and northern Ukraine in 2022 upended the country’s agricultural sector at a time when it was the world’s fourth-largest corn exporter and was poised to become the third-largest wheat exporter.

Since then, large areas of cultivated land have been under Russian occupation, in the war zone or littered with mines and shells.

Sown acreage has shrunk, and grain and oilseed crops have fallen from a record 106 million tons in 2021 to 65 million tons in 2022.

Experts say that this year this volume may fall to approximately 50-55 million tons.

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